Mental Illnesses That CBD Can Help Treat

A compound that is derived from cannabis plants, cannabidiol (or CBD) can be used to treat up to nine different mental illnesses. CBD oil will not produce a high, but rather provide a natural, calming effect on the patient. Due to these symptoms, they are used as a great treatment for many mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and many more.

You'll be surprised by these nine mental illnesses that CBD can help treat, and what cannabidiol can do for your mind's health. It is important to be aware that any treatment used for a mental illness should first be consulted with a professional medical doctor. And though CBD is often used to help treat mental illnesses, it is often used in collaboration with medication.

Disclaimer

Before we get into talking about these mental illnesses that CBD can help treat, we want to make sure we start off with a disclaimer. Though CBD is a great way to naturally treat some of the most life consuming mental illnesses, advice from a medical doctor should always be considered before taking matters into your own hands.

It is never safe to change your mental health care drastically and on your own, especially if your body has adjusted to the use of medication for your health. Take steps toward a new remedy or treatment with the aid of a professional.

If you ever begin to have suicidal thoughts or thoughts of hurting yourself or someone else, call 1-800-273-8255.

PTSD

PTSD is the first of the mental illnesses that CBD can help treat. As a natural solution to post-traumatic stress disorder, many veterans turn to the use of CBD, rather than resorting to anti-depressants. It is an alternative that makes a huge difference in the lives of veterans who feel that anti-depressants make them feel unlike themselves.

CBD can specifically affect the reduction of fear memory, while still remaining fully aware and present in their lives. Hypervigilance and night terrors have also been reported to be combatted by CBD, which eliminates living with the fear of an episode in any situation, especially crowds, situations with loud noises, or being woken from sleep.

It has been proven to reduce learned fear, which is the core of the problem for many veterans, and what makes the natural remedy so effective.

Anxiety

As one of the most common mental illnesses that CBD can help treat, anxiety is often treated by CBD on the daily. Though anxiety had been commonly made more vulnerable during recreation marijuana use, managing anxiety with CBD oil is an entirely different process.

Used as a natural anxiolytic, CBD can help reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and simply maintain control. CBD oil will calm your nerves by the way that it interacts with your brain. This can be used as an alternative to inhibitors like Prozac and Zoloft.

However, you should always contact your doctor when considering a new path for your medical treatments. A treatment used for people from all walks of life, anxiety affects 40 million adults in the United States every year.

Social Anxiety

Social anxiety affects over 15 million Americans, making up over eight percent of the population. With this in mind, finding a natural alternative to combat a popular daily struggle such as this has been groundbreaking. For example, the fear of public speaking is one of the most prominent traits of the disorder that can be treated by CBD.

It will create a more at ease mindset, making social anxiety strugglers more comfortable with speaking in public, and simple day to day situations that involve uncomfortable interactions for them. CBD can even be taken for stress, panic attacks, migraines, and anxiety attacks.

OCD

Though OCD is typically treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication, OCD is also one of the mental illnesses that CBD can help treat. Considered to be an anxiety disorder by some, the cannabidiol will react in similar ways as it does to combat anxiety and social anxiety.

Though a bit more complex, OCD does require a calming and relaxing treatment to overcome disorder conditions. Some of these conditions include recurring thoughts, fears, images, obsessions, nervousness, and rituals. Because these symptoms are recurring, CBD is a great way to alleviate many of these anxiety induced compulsions and symptoms.

Sleep Disorders

CBD is often used to aid in sleep, and is a great way to extend REM sleep, by eliminating anxieties that might stop you from achieving this stage of sleep or even falling asleep altogether. CBD has been proven to increase the amount of sleep as well as improve insomnia.

It can also be used to increase sleep quality for those who suffer from chronic pain. And during the day, CBD can be used to improve daily alertness and combat sleepiness, in turn affecting your daily performance, strength, and creating a healthier sleep cycle.

During REM sleep, many people suffer from REM behavior disorder. This is when people physically act out while they are in their deepest sleep, which will disturb your sleep cycle. But with CBD, it will treat the symptoms and allows the body to remain in REM atonia, where the body is mostly paralyzed.

Depression

A study conducted in 2014 used animals to test different scenarios while using CBD as an anti-depressant. Some of the scenarios included swim tests, a maze, and conflict tests. It was proven that while being treated with CBD, the animals showed fewer depression symptoms.

As one of the mental illnesses that CBD can help treat, it has been proven that CBD aids in handling depression by acting as an anti-depressant-like compound. The study concluded that CBD overall had a positive interaction with instances of depression in animals. It will positively influence mood as well as mental health.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder can be aided by the use of CBD oil for similar symptoms that cannabidiol is used to treat depression. With symptoms such as nervousness, stress, and controlling moods, CBD can be used to help each of these overwhelming conditions brought on by the mental illness.

Stress is one of the major keys to a depressive episode, and decreasing this is a great way that CBD can affect bipolar disorder. And the fact that CBD can ease this, as well as control moods, makes it a great natural treatment for those who struggle with this life-consuming disorder.

Schizophrenia

Next on our list of the mental illnesses that CBD can help treat is schizophrenia. Though this illness is one of the least studied among the list, there is hope that CBD will provide relief for those who suffer from schizophrenia in the near future.

The condition not only affects the way that you think, but feel and behave. In a recent study, Dr. Katrina Green conducted a release that states that the use of CBD may be used to reduce aggravation and impairment that is caused by the mental illness. By studying cognitive symptoms, Green discovered that CBD could help treat symptoms such as delusions and even hallucinations.

There was also a study done with rats, where Green concluded that CBD not only improves cognition, but social interaction in rats that were infected with polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid, which generates disorders such as autism and schizophrenia in rats.

Addiction

One of the most surprising mental illnesses that CBD can help treat is addiction. Cannabidiol has been recently researched to prove the treatability of both substance abuse and addiction as a way to reduce cravings, or more specifically, cue-induced cravings, which is triggered by a stimulus.

For example, for a smoker, a cigarette might often be smoked after finishing a meal, which will soon be associated in their mind with completing a meal with a cigarette each time. A huge aspect of addiction, craving is what consumes the person who suffers from this mental illness, and this is a great treatment to be used to stray away from drugs, alcohol, sex, cigarettes, you name it. And one the most surprising realizations is that CBD can reduce craving cannabis.

CBD can even repair damage in the brain that is caused by living a life of addiction. This is due to the neuroprotectant quality of the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of CBD. In simpler terms, cannabidiol can help correct damage that is caused by long-term addicts.